One Freelancer Discovers Twitter Trend Marketing – A Guest Post

Twitter recently celebrated its’ 7-year anniversary. The Social Media site is a virtual everything in one. News, weather, sports, and socialization are available all in a screenshot.

Recently I have begun to experiment with using Twitter in a more efficient way when it comes to advertising my writing. It involves deploying the use of trends in order to draw readers to my profile (https://twitter.com/WriterDann) and ultimately my book listing. While it is too early to determine if the strategy is working completely, so far I have concluded that it is likely to work some days and maybe not work on others.

You may be able to find something that is trending worldwide or in your own country and write something that may be relevant to hook readers in to checking your info out further. It matters not if your intention is to seek more followers. More followers are great, but they will not always translate into new clients or writing opportunities.

Let me give you a couple of examples of how this could work. Recently one of the reoccurring Twitter trends has been #WhyISmile. Besides making a lovely reference to my wife @Prayerless and linking her into a Tweet, I could write something like:

Because I wrote a book and you can buy it here (Book Link) #WhyISmile.

With pop group One Direction also trending on a regular basis, I could turn the hash tag #OneDirection into something like:

When it came to having kids versus not having kids, for me there was only #OneDirection (Book Link).

Granted, having One Direction as a trend pretty much guarantees that your profile is likely to be visited by several teenage fans of the pop group. Yet I still see it as an opportunity to sell books.

As a writer, one of the things you do as part of the job is exercise creativity. No matter what your writing business is about, whether you have a specialty in your freelance practice or you have written a book about a niche subject, you can easily draw in potential opportunity with creative use of Twitter trends. Look at this as an opportunity to create free advertising for yourself.

I would also encourage readers to use even a seemingly nonsensical trend into drawing traffic. There are many users who will even start a tweet off with a new has tag and then not even connect it to the subject of their business. Yet, they are still attempting to deploy the tactic to draw readers and business.

Personally, I would rather use the trends in as much of a creative way as possible and somehow tie it into my book or business.

A few final thoughts connected to your Twitter profile. If necessary, use a link shortening service like Bitly to compress an online listing for your book and even your business. My description profile right now shows the Amazon U.S. Listing because this is where the largest market for my book currently exists. Remember to make periodic edits to reflect a new book or website that you might be involved in.

You can find trends on the left side of your Twitter profile screen. Change countries for a different view. When using a smartphone, tap/click on discover in order to view a list of current trends.

Googling twitter trends or twitter trending will give you more ways to trend spot.

#thankyou

William (Dann) Alexander is a freelance writer an owner of Frogsong Productions. You can learn more about him at www.dannalexander.netand his twitter handle is @writerDann

Your turn – do you use twitter trends as part of your marketing? Do you plan to now that you’ve learned a bit more about it? What questions do you have? Let’s talk about it in comments.